How to Get Off the College Waitlist
If you’ve applied to your dream school but are on the waiting list, it may seem like all hope is lost. In a way, this can be worse than being rejected; you have not been formally refused, and it seems that the university is at least in some way interested in you. But your place on the waiting list remains a stark reminder that you are mostly in academic purgatory.
Fortunately, there are ways to take your application off the waiting list and put it in the endorsements pile. Here are some ways to make this dream school take you off the hated waiting list by the May 1st official registration deadline.
Send a letter with a waiting list to the admissions office
The admissions office has no incentive to pick up the velvet rope and let you into school unless they know how excited you are about attending their university or college. This is why you should write a waiting list letter – essentially a statement of intent that details how in love you are with school and why you are the perfect fit.
The letter should also indicate new achievements in your life and academic career, be it new awards, awards, extracurricular achievements, standardized test scores, and spring semester grades. This is more than just a flirty look at your chosen college. This is a direct statement of your plan to attend college at your chosen school. The letter should be sent in a package by mail or e-mail to the school’s admissions office.
Choosing who will be enrolled in a school and whose application will be rejected from the waiting list is not an easy process. You were placed on the waiting list because the university evaluated your transcripts and essays, but you got stopped because there were limited places left on the admissions office for the incoming freshman class.
Make a deposit at another school
While you should try your best to get your name off the waiting list at your dream school, you should be realistic. According to data provided by 91 universities to US News & World Report , roughly one in five applicants on the waiting list will eventually be admitted. This means that you should at least consider an alternative, and there is no better way to do this by making a deposit at the school you chose second.
Note, this is not an admission of defeat. Your deposit is usually only a few hundred dollars and is refundable. You need insurance to move to the hostel (obviously when the pandemic is over) and a deposit will insure this.
Stay on the ball
The waiting list letter is really just the beginning of your quest for the welcome letter of acceptance. If you receive any other accolades after responding to a waiting list letter, you should notify the university’s admissions office by separate email. The bottom line is that you have to keep the university informed of all the great things happening in your life so that they can see how successful you are.
You should send new information if it really fell. Feel free to send in any other guidelines your teachers might want to write, and if you really can’t wait to impress, there are other tools at your disposal.
However, be careful not to overdo it. As Rick Bischoff, vice president of admissions management at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, told US News:
What you want to avoid is the stalker mentality where, every three days, an email from a student suddenly arrives, followed by seven additional letters of recommendation.
As hard as it is to think so, you shouldn’t expect too much to go to a particular college. You can attribute an idealized and unrealistic view to the college you’re passionate about, so stay put and understand that you are likely to have a great experience wherever you go.